Review: Mowgli: Legend of the Jungle

-
The bare necessities

Do I even need to do a plot run down at this point? Mowgli (Rohand Chand) is a boy left in the jungle who is rescued by a panther, Bagheera (Christian Bale) and ultimately raised by wolves. But the dangerous tiger Shere Khan (Benedict Cumberbatch) is hell bent on killing Mowgli as he did his parents.

WB and director Andy Serkis started work on this film before Disney came along and made their own live action Jungle Book, grossed a billion dollars, and won an Oscar. Then they got stuck in the awkward position of telling everyone "but this is the dark version!" Despite the insistence that they were going to go full D.C Universe with this, WB dumped it on Netflix. 

For me personally, Netflix was a good move because I don't think I would've went to this in theaters. The fact that WETA, the same people that brought us the flawless Planet of the Apes movies (War should've won that Best Visual Effects Oscar...I will fight you) the CGI is horrendous. I know Serkis is big on showing the human side of motion capture. While it worked with primates in the Apes films it's distracting and cheap looking. When you know that they're capable of, seeing this result is even more offensive.

Another problem this film faced is its voice actors. I really have to question what kind of direction Serkis was giving them because so many of them are completely over the top. Christian Bale was the only one that I consistently liked throughout the film.

Mowgli does dare to be different. Shere Khan is legitimately terrifying and his and Mowgli's final show down was done really well. I also give props for attempting to be different with the character of Baloo, who Serkis plays like the town drunk here. I'm not sure if it worked, but it was new.

This makes for a fine Netflix watch but I just feel bad for Andy Serkis and all involved at this point. The entire situation is just rough, and the finished product certainly didn't soften the blow.

Recommended: No 

Grade: C

Memorable Quote: "I haven't come to rescue you, little brother." - Bagheera (Christian Bale)

Comments

  1. s.December 17, 2018 at 9:53 AM

    This looks depressing as hell so I will not touch it especially around Xmas :D

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Brittani BurnhamDecember 17, 2018 at 3:59 PM

      I wouldn't say it's overly depressing it's just bland and could be so much better lol

      Delete
  2. keith71_98December 17, 2018 at 11:16 AM

    Ouch. I almost started this movie a couple times but always changed my mind. I think I'll push it back a little further on my watch list.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Brittani BurnhamDecember 17, 2018 at 3:58 PM

      Yeah, it's not great. I would maybe give another studio a pass on CGI if they didn't have such an amazing track record. Like, what is this?

      Delete
  3. thevoid99December 17, 2018 at 2:33 PM

    I still haven't seen the recent version of The Jungle Book though it's still in my watchlist from my local library. Yeah, I'm not going to watch this film.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Brittani BurnhamDecember 17, 2018 at 3:58 PM

      I didn't have a desire to watch that one at all and only watched this because it was on Netflix. I would've skipped both if they were theatrical releases.

      Delete
  4. MarvelDecember 17, 2018 at 4:48 PM

    Fantastic review Brittani.❤️

    ReplyDelete
  5. Carson Maitland - SmithDecember 18, 2018 at 6:54 AM

    Awesome review

    ReplyDelete
  6. GeektellerDecember 19, 2018 at 4:27 AM

    I'm starting to get bored of this whole animation to CGI type of movies. That's why I'm not impressed with Lion King, either. It's just not natural to me, especially when it comes to animals. They should have left it in animation form. Anyway, great review, thanks for confirming my suspicions :)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Brittani BurnhamDecember 19, 2018 at 6:31 AM

      Same, and The Lion King is still too soon, IMO. I can somewhat understand these movies that came out in the 60's like Jungle Book, but The Lion King? That still holds up.

      Delete

Post a Comment

Thanks for stopping by, let's talk movies!
(comments are moderated to reduce spam)

Popular posts from this blog

Random Ramblings: The Radio Flyer Conundrum

-
Image
Recently, I was talking to someone about who I thought were the best child actors when I was also a child.  Two that really stood out to me were Elijah Wood and Joseph Mazello, and one film those two were in together was called Radio Flyer.  Then I was reminded about the uniqueness of this film. Instead of reviewing the film, I wanted to have an open discussion about the ending. It deals with a tough issue; child abuse. What I’ve noticed is the way that the film ends is interpreted many different ways, and the filmmakers never came forward to say what was right and wrong. I’m interested in hearing everyone’s opinions on it. How did you interpret the ending? Obviously spoiler alerts will follow.. For those of you who haven’t seen the film, the basic premise is this: Two young boys, Mikey (Wood) and Bobby (Mazello) move in with their single mother and her boyfriend, who refers to himself as ‘The King’. It doesn’t take long for The King to start physically abusing ...
Read more

Indie Gems: Behind The Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon

-
Image
Passionate about your profession? I had never heard of this film until it ended up on one of Jason's favorite horror movie lists around Halloween. It immediately sounded interesting to me, so of course I threw it in my Netflix queue. (and if I'm just now watching it after adding it around Halloween, you know how ridiculous my queue is) Taylor (Angela Goethals) is a journalist who, along with a film crew decides to follow around a serial killer named Leslie Vernon. (Nathan Baesel) He plans on doing the typical slasher thing - getting a bunch of drunk teens in an abandoned house and knocking them off one by one. He gets advice from a retired serial killer, Eugene (Scott Wilson) and is threatened by a man who's on to him, Doc Holloran (Robert Englund) Taylor and crew are there capturing it all. Leslie Vernon is fucking hilarious to start with, and clearly very passionate about what he does. He tells Taylor all of his secrets and can barely contain his excitemen...
Read more

My Favorite Movie Youtube Channels

-
Image
Starting around 2018, I started watching Youtube for more than just movie trailers or music videos whenever a new one dropped. Now I'm in full blown subscription mode and don't bat an eyelash at watching a Youtube video that's over an hour long. I watch Youtube for a few different categories of content, but one of them that I love most is movie/TV essays and commentary, and that's what I'm going to talk about today. Below is a list of my favorite movie related Youtube channels. Let me know if you're familiar with them too, or if you have any you'd like to recommend to me.  Double Toasted - I'm honestly surprised this channel isn't bigger. I first came across Korey and Martin when they reviewed War for the Planet of the Apes a few months before it hit theaters and I thought they were hysterical. While their full length videos stream on Twitch, they often upload their movie reviews and commentary on youtube and they're always hilarious. They've...
Read more